Author: admin

In mid-November, we learned that Fidelity marked down the value of its Snapchat investment by 25%, which instantly reignited the tech bubble conversation. We may be in a bubble, but this event is not an indicator. What this mark down does reveal is a shift in investment strategy for large investment funds. “Fidelity lowered the Read More

I received this email today from Handy, an on-demand booking service for home cleaning: We have entered into the new deal economy. Deeply discounted service offerings that are now delivered on demand instead of to your inbox. But daily deals — in their original form — failed. It started five years ago with Groupon. Subsequently thousands of clones emerged. Read More

Maybe. Maybe Not. The Wall Street Journal reported that Airbnb is closing an uber financing round of $1BN at a $24B valuation. A valuation that factors in a projected loss of $150M and estimates revenue of $900M in 2015. Tech bubble? Maybe. WSJ compares AirBnB to Marriott, specifically citing that Airbnb’s valuation is comparable to Read More

It’s more than just table stakes. I’m hearing increasingly more dialogue about value-add investing (or maybe that’s just from reading every post in my daily Mattermark emails). But there doesn’t seem to be a consensus yet on what value-add is. So, here’s how I build-up value-add investing: Investors: Invest capital in exchange for equity (or Read More

The meaningless debate of whether MBAs can be entrepreneurs. The MBA bashing by the startup community has been in effect for years. The most recent post I read was Howard Tullman’s A/B Testing Is So Yesterday—and So Is Your MBA. And like the others, it reads like click bait. Why? Because it is a manufactured issue. Read More

Why on-demand marketplaces need urgency. Jeremy Levine and Rafi Syed recently posted about the nascent opportunity that remains in unbundling horizontal marketplaces (Amazon, Craigslist) into distinct verticals (taxis, home cleaning, shared rentals). This opportunity is illustrated through the now-famous craigslist defragmentation pitch deck slide: Sourced from http://www.leighdrogen.com/the-law-of-unbundling/; Originally created by Andrew Parker The proliferation of the vertical marketplaces is Read More

Today, we are honored to announce the acquisition of Artifact Uprising, a Dashfire portfolio company, by VSCO. There is no singular path for startup success, just a number of right paths; most of which are celebrated as successful in hindsight. The founders of AU, Jenna, Katie, and Matty, paved their own path. In fact, had they shared their roadmap with the Read More

I love accelerators. I have witnessed their impact first hand on Dashfire startups and as a mentor for TechStars, DreamIt, and Impact Engine companies. These highly selective programs enable early stage startups through mentorship, networking, and fundraising to leading angels and VCs. AirBnB, Dropbox, and Digital Ocean are just three of the many extraordinary accelerator Read More

Last Monday, I was asked to welcome the current batch of Startup Institute Chicago students. I enjoyed reflecting on how much has changed for startups in Chicago over the past 4 years. Here is a slightly edited version of what I said to the SI class — I was here last fall welcoming the inaugural Read More

Last Wednesday, I spoke to the inaugural Startup Institute class in Chicago about how to “introduce” themselves to startups. This reminded me of an introduction I gave for Georgetown’s business school head, Dean David Thomas. I’ve copied the intro below and included a few takeaways on what I did right and could have done better. Read More